Marion, there is a theme, if you remember I put out a few sections from a text book on the Eocene when CO2 was at 1000ppm. The reason I'd put it out was that Ed Hawkins had asked me why I assumed that the tropics would extend further north and I had previously checked climate in the Eocene and found the tropics extended to 45 degrees, the tropics as was had hardly warmed at all and that the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator had halved.

That's what's going to happen if we have 4C of heat increase, the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles will fall, which by the atmospheric physics should lead to a lowering in number and intensity of tropical cyclones which are the world trying to balance its energy budget. Yet here we have 2500 of the finest scientific minds in history telling us that if the world warms there will be more intense and frequent tropical cyclones, that there will be more extreme weather etc.

Ed (who didn't seem to know that higher global temperatures in the past had led to milder, less intense weather) came back on the sea levels and Richard on the fact that the CO2 was 1000ppm. Neither of which was important, at least to me, because the key was the change in temperature gradient between the equator and the poles and the manner in which it changed i.e maxing out at the poles and almost zero at the equator. Which means that the 90%, or so, of ice in the world which is at the Antarctic will remain at an ambient temperature of -35C, while the Arctic sea ice will melt completley in the summer, and there will be some loss of land ice. Not very threatening in terms of sea level rises.

However, once challenged the high priests will go away and come up with some other schoolboy explanation for how the Antarctic will melt in its entirety, probably pubished in PNAS, or Proceeding of RS.

Pity about you not being in Oxfordshire, that WI meeting stuff had the makings of a great sitcom.

Rhoda, it wasn't you who was reading Agenda 21? Then it was someone else who I am convinced was female, and certainly someone to be wary of intellectually.

Mike Jackson, I live in Cognac for part of the year (I'm sober for the rest - just joking) and the climate is, as you say warmer, on balance sunnier, and prone to wild storms.

Rhoda et al Richard B does believe that CO2 is dangerous and that it will cause a problem. He happens to be an extraordinarily nice person, so nice in fact that, to repeat myself (sorry BBD) he has to take "nasty" tablets three times a day to balance his personality. I don't believe he's pretending to be open minded, I belive he, Ed, Rob and John, (the Fab Four of climate science) have visited this site with a genuine desire to engage with sceptics, and, yes, convert them if possible. The have all, with the exception of one slip by Rob, decided that they'll get nowhere by being confrontrational, and neither will we. Although I doubt that we'd get anywhere even if the evidence was clear persuading anyone on the planet whose livelihood depended upon the GW scare coming round to our way of thinking any time soon. I certainly wouldn't but then Mrs. Geronimo often remarks that I, "...give new depths to the meaning of the word 'shallow'."

"The reason I'd put it out was that Ed Hawkins had asked me why I assumed that the tropics would extend further north and I had previously checked climate in the Eocene and found the tropics extended to 45 degrees, the tropics as was had hardly warmed at all and that the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator had halved."

Indeed which is why I mentioned more 'ambient' global temperatures. It seems to me that more of the land mass would be habitable more comfortably! After all 'Greenland' proved very attractive to the Vikings' at a later date!

And certainly I have mentioned Agenda 21 (but would not consider myself to be 'someone to be wary of intellectually'!) - I think you will find that it is full of well-sounding phrases, after all who could argue with this

"An open, equitable, secure, non-discriminatory and predictable multilateral trading system that is consistent with the goals of sustainable development and leads to the optimal distribution of global production in accordance with comparative advantage is of benefit to all trading partners."

http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/res_agenda21_02.shtml

so reminiscent it seems of the 'Common market' we voted to remain a member of in 1975 minus of course the 'sustainable development' bit - not so 'fashionable' then!

The UN may laud 'sustainable development' but the interpretation and execution thereof would seem to be something entirely different and not what people have been led to expect.

The comments here are especially revealing - follow the links and see how it is affecting people in various parts of the world, indeed google LA21 and your own local council to see how it is impacting on the planning laws - you may be surprised!

http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/foia-agenda-21/

And biofuels have been an absolute disaster for the developing nations despite the hype they were given -

As for our 'Climate Scientists' I am afraid I'm somewhat more cynical. It seems to me the truth is more important than certain sensitivities.

Truth to me is something precious and to be sought after (indeed I'd put most sceptics into this category), alien to others (politicians spring to mind) and to others somewhat 'unfashionable' or something to be avoided (and yes I'd put many of our Climate Scientists into this latter category, those who prefer not to answer questions asked but rather their own variation thereof!).

So forgive me if I reserve the term 'fab' for those others who have risked much in their own pursuit of the truth ie the likes of Lindzen, Carter, McKittrick, McIntyre, Christy, Spencer, Landsea, Wegman, Tol, Svensmark .... just too many to name. They are the ones who earn my admiration and praise!

Oh and definitiely Anthony Watts for his surface station project. His earlier report proved to be something of an eye-opener for me as far as the surface stations were concerned. Well worth reading -

Fascinating info. from Russia

"RUSSIA The Ria Novosti agency reported that the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report22 claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change had probably tampered with Russian climate data:

“The IEA believes that Russian meteorological station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. The Russian station count dropped from 476 to 121 so over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global temperature calculations for some other reasons rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.”

"The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often show no substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations with incomplete data, highlighting apparent global warming, rather than stations with uninterrupted observations. The Russians concluded that climatologists used the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations. These stations are located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban warming effect."

More from Canada

"CANADA In Canada, the number of stations dropped from 600 to less than 50. The percentage of stations in the lower elevations (below 300 feet) tripled and those at higher elevations above 3000 feet were reduced by half. Canada’s semi-permanent depicted warmth comes from interpolating from more southerly locations to fill northerly vacant grid boxes, even as a simple average of the available stations shows an apparent cooling." and more....

"EUROPE In Europe higher mountain stations were dropped, leaving behind more coastal cities. The thermometers increasingly moved to the Mediterranean and lower elevations with time. This enhances the urbanization and cyclical warming. The dropout in Europe as a whole was almost 65%. In the Nordic countries it was 50%."

and yet more from Africa, South America, New Zealand, Australia .......

Thank you, Marion - that surface_temp doc is going to be a good read. I just read CASE 12: NASA: “HIDE THIS AFTER JIM CHECKS IT” and can heartily recommend it to all! If nothing else it certainly throws a new light onto how adjustments are actually decided in the field i.e.

"Should we adjust everything before 2000 or everything after 2000?""Who do we tell?

This was Anthony's paper along with d'Aleo three or four years ago.The reaction to the immediately identifiable, immediately identified, and acknowledged major error in the Hawaii readings tells you all you need to know about the integrity of those who maintain the data bases.Thankyou, Marion, I had forgotten where this was from. Now saved!Who do we tell?Whoever you like, matthu. Nobody's listening.The only minor consolation we have (and I may not live to see it) is that as the climate persistently fails to do what the alarmists say it is doing (even as they can see it isn't) is that the disasters forecast will not happen and with any luck the principle of 'you can't fool all the people all the time' ought to kick in.For my grand-daughter's sake I hope my optimism is justified.

"Hillary Ostrov was the first to read Agenda 21, then I read about half of it, she is the one with the intellect ^.^"

Indeed, and Hilary has many excellent posts on Agenda 21 and certainly a formidable intellect - another for my 'fab' list (along with Donna Laframboise and Jo Nova of course, and E.M.Smith, the list grows longer....)

'We’ve confirmed experimentally that changes in relative humidity can separate the organic and inorganic material in individual atmospheric particles into distinct liquid phases, much like oil separates from water.

'Having two liquid phases rather than one can change the rates of chemical reactions on particles, may change the amount of light the particles reflect and absorb, and impact their ability to act as seeds for clouds.

'We need to understand as much as possible about the chemical composition, physical properties and interactions of atmospheric particles if we’re going to assess how they impact human health, regional weather patterns, and even global climate change.'

Climatologically significant effects means effects that are demonstrably affecting GAT over climatological (multi-decadal) periods. Astonishing what some commenters here will try to pick a fight over. If you don't like the actual words because they are hard to read or spell or something, we can just say 'GCR climate signal' instead.

And yet BBD never seems to point out things which have been measured. For CO2, all we have is a radiative effect and some proxies and some models. We really do not have links between radiative effects and actual climate effects to any degree of certainty. That's what I am asking for, and not only am I not seeing it in the literature the climate community have nothing useful to say about it and do not seem to be looking or formulating experiments which would do the job.

And yes, the same job would need to be done on GCRs, but if the actual cloud cover can be linked to GCR with little lag, that would be something if on the right scale. I assume BBD will accept that cloud has climatological significance.

BBD, do you at least agree that the "attributed" CO2 forcings (which you obviously seem to regard as "best evidence") are a fragile house of cards? BTW, your link here to H&S'12 is now broken (it's now on another page). You can check about what I complained for instance here.

You are being the very model of the tedious contrarian. I am not here to 'debate' whether or not CO2 forcing is causing energy to accumulate in the climate system. You want to deny that, find someone else to argue with.

Same goes for rhoda, and others. That's just denial, and I am not interested in discussing it with you. Evidence is a different matter, but it's clear that nobody is remotely interested in evidence.

The above seems like a reasonable attempt to answer a question people have been asking you.

Astonishing what some commenters here will try to pick a fight over. If you don't like the actual words because they are hard to read or spell or something, we can just say 'GCR climate signal' instead.

The above is emotional garbage and so is this:

Before picking a fight about evidence for the climatologically significant effects of GCR flux, I would advise researching the Laschamp excursion.

You are being the very model of the tedious contrarian. I am not here to 'debate' whether or not CO2 forcing is causing energy to accumulate in the climate system. You want to deny that, find someone else to argue with.

The thread is about evidence. You are not bringing any. Find another thread, or start your own right here on discussion, or bring some better evidence here. And if you find us all just too tedious for your precious self, the solution is in your hands.

BBD, I remind you that you accused someone else of "lying" without evidence and you never apologised; you accused others of misrepresenting frequently but you're confusing, for example, "knowledge" with "likelihood", again; and you state that aerolsols are not CCNs. And you dare to say: "but it's clear that nobody is remotely interested in evidence"? You are a troll (see the best evidence above).

I am not here to 'debate' whether or not CO2 forcing is causing energy to accumulate in the climate system.

The question is not whether it is happening or not. We all accept that this is happening and you misrepresent the majority of us by saying that we don't.

The question is whether or not it is being compensated for or reinforced by other factors and what those factors are and the extent to which this is happening. That is where the requirement for evidence comes in. All BBD gives is bluster and pretence.

September 2011, aerosols are not CCNs. They can *become* CCNs. Nor am I a troll. If you start at the beginning of this thread, you will see that I have tried - and failed, in the face of shut-eyed denial from all present - to assist in answering rhoda's original question.

Aww ... the poor little zealot is "bored" ... As usual, following a flourish of mindless insults and further non-responsive thread-derailing "replies", he retires (at least temporarily) to his spot under the bridge!

How considerate of him. Perhaps the grown-ups can now resume their adult conversations!